Nisansa Dilushan de Silva

I am a lecturer at the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. I obtained my Ph.D (2020, advisor: Dejing Dou) and MS (2016) degrees in Computer and Information Science from University of Oregon, USA and my BSc (Hons) in Computer Science & Engineering (2011) degree from University of Moratuwa. I joined University of Moratuwa as a lecturer in 2011. From 2013 to 2014, I worked as a researcher at LIRNEasia. In 2018, I worked as a Givens Associate at Argonne National Laboratory, USA. I have over 80 peer reviewed publications in the field of computer science, mostly under the subfields of Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence, earning more than 1400 citations. I am also an associate member of the IESL.

Professional Experience

  • Present 2020

    Senior Lecturer

    Department of Computer science & Engineering, University of Moratuwa,
    Sri Lanka

  • 2021 2020

    Research Fellow

    LIRNEasia,
    Sri Lanka

  • 2020 2014

    Graduate Research/Teaching Fellow

    University of Oregon, Department of Computer and Information Science,
    USA.

  • 2018 2018

    Givens Associate

    Argonne National Laboratory,
    USA.

  • 2020 2011

    Lecturer

    Department of Computer science & Engineering, University of Moratuwa,
    Sri Lanka

  • 2014 2013

    Researcher

    LIRNEasia,
    Sri Lanka

  • 2014 2013

    Visiting Lecturer

    Northshore College of Business and Technology,
    Sri Lanka

Education

  • Ph.D. 2020

    Ph.D. in Computer & Information Science

    University of Oregon, USA

  • MS 2016

    MS in Computer & Information Science

    University of Oregon, USA

  • BSc2011

    B.Sc Engineering (Hons)in Computer Science & Engineering

    University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Featured Research

Sinhala Diachronic Corpus


N. de Silva

NeurIPS 2025 AI for Science Workshop, 2025,

We propose to build a comprehensive diachronic corpus for the Sinhala language. Sinhala is the native language of Sri Lanka, where it has official language status. This corpus is aimed at addressing the notable gap in available linguistic resources for the language, which has a rich literary heritage yet remains under-represented in research. This work would be beneficial mainly to the Sinhala-speaking community, which numbers approximately 16 million people, clearly denoting an underserved minority in the global language ecosystem. Further, researchers focusing on the historical evolution of other related languages, such as Dhivehi, Marathi, Sanskrit, and Hindi, may use this corpus as an auxiliary source in their work. We hope to compile a diverse dataset that spans various time periods and genres, drawing from a wide array of sources, including online content, books, articles, and newspapers. Given that Sinhala has gone through a significant number of evolutionary eras since its origins in the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE, we intend to collaborate with Sri Lankan institutions and language scholars to annotate texts based on their original writing dates, as opposed to publication dates. Ultimately, following its open access release, this corpus will not only advance the understanding of the linguistic evolution of Sinhala but also contribute to the preservation of its literary legacy.